Bumblebee and the Transformers

So I've been quiet for a while; as usual, no excuses from me, unlike someone else I recently decided to check up on, wink wink if you're reading this by the way, but we're not here to discuss why I've been too busy playing Far Cry 3 Classic Edition and taking Jordan Peterson's advice by cleaning my room in the hopes of it butterflying outwards into a less nihilistic future, because a few weeks ago now, Paramount released a trailer for Bumblebee, a movie I shouldn't be excited for, but kind of am, in fact it could be the best Transformers film yet, but sadly, it might also be too little too late for the Transformers on the big screen, let's go.

Like I said in my reviews for Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I have a certain fondness for the Transformers franchise, and have done since the age of 11, when I first saw the Michael Bay-directed 2007 film. What I also said in those reviews is that while I came to adore the franchise, watching and loving Transformers Animated and Transformers: Prime, the two high points of the series for me, and playing the shit out of High Moon Studios' Cybertron games, I effectively forgot about the live action films, with the last one I actually saw being Dark of the Moon in 2011. What re-watching and reviewing the first two in the series has taught me is that I have a very interesting relationship with them, mainly that I'm somewhat nostalgic for them, and want to like them, but can't escape the fact that they're kind of crap, and from what I've heard of the last two in the series, it hasn't gotten better, in fact it seems to have gotten worse. There are many reasons for that in my opinion, and most of them revolve around the man at the helm, Michael Bay, a man who knows how to make big, loud, obnoxious movies where things go boom, but who doesn't seem to know shit about making films with any kind of substance or depth to them, which is why the Transformers films are all visually immaculate and boring as hell to watch, when they're not killing you to death with the 'comedy' that is. But by far the biggest issue I have with those films, as I made very clear in my Revenge of the Fallen review, is that the people making it just don't give a shit; they don't love Transformers, and therefore don't really care about the stories they're trying to tell or the characters they're creating, and couple that with Michael Bay's lack of substance, and you've got the recipe for a shit movie.

But Bumblebee's different, and what I love immediately about the trailer is how immediately distinguishable it is from the Bay-directed films. What I mean here is a bit hard to explain, but there is a substance here that is simply lacking in the trailers for the previous films. All of the trailers for the Bay-directed films are horrifically over-produced, and based around and focused on the visuals; giving you loads of explosions, Transformers, various Michael Bayisms like low angle shots of people getting out of cars, not to mention all the sexy women, which isn't a problem on its own, but more relating to the issue of substance, or lack thereof. A sexy but uncompelling character may be great to look at, but boring to watch, if that makes sense. What's great about the Bumblebee trailer is the distinct lack of any of those Michael Bayisms, but more over, and possibly more importantly, is the subtly and intimacy of the trailer. The Bay-directed films have always had a sense of scale to them, down to them being so over-produced, but perhaps also due to the focus on visuals, which are all riddled with things exploding, a complete lack of subtlety, and an overall vibe of spectacle before substance. Emotion is also an area that previous Transformers trailers, and for that matter, Transformers films, have struggled with, with, again, the focus on spectacle preceding everything else. Then in swoops Bumblebee, with a trailer filled with subtlety, devoid of explosions, featuring a Transformer displaying vulnerability, and presenting radically different vibe. Rather than focusing on the boom boom, this trailer's primary focus is on Hailee Steinfeld's character and Bumblebee, and this is a great change. The use of Bernie Mac's line from the first film isn't just a nice throwback, it's a brilliant way of establishing the relationship between the two characters, one built upon in the rest of the trailer, in a way I can best describe as cute. As far as I know, a Transformers movie trailer has never featured a shot-reverse shot of the human hero and the Transformer hugging each other, in fact I don't think any of the films have featured something like that, and the meaning of something so seemingly insignificant cannot be understated.

The trailer continues in that regard, showing the two at the beach, driving along the coast, and a sequence that probably needs more context, with the two of them underwater. Again, going back to my reviews for the first two films, a big issue with those films was the sheer amount of things going on; juggling the main hero's story, which was further bogged down by needless parent and girlfriend drama, with the government's story, then with the Autobot story, then with the Decepticon story, and because Michael Bay isn't subtle, that drags out the films' runtimes and kills the pacing. But Bumblebee looks to have done a lot of streamlining, there'll undoubtedly be subplots; John Cena's in the movie as a Sector Seven agent, and the Autobots and Decepticons will naturally have their own little subplots, but the director of this film, one Travis Knight, is someone who understands subtlety and how to tell a coherent story, so it'll most likely pan out well. But Travis Knight, who's he, and why do I have confidence in him? Well, Travis Knight is an animator, to be more specific, he was the lead animator of a little studio called Laika, who you may know for making some of the best stop motion films in recent memory, if not of all time, with three masterpieces under their belt; Coraline, ParaNorman, and most recently, Kubo and the Two Strings, which was in fact Travis Knight's directorial debut. Something about a film like Coraline is it's understanding of subtlety; exploring mature concepts through the lens of a family film, while telling a story that, as I described in my review, is as much a horror as it is a family film, that and the simple fact that the films Travis Knight has worked on are all visually superb in a way Michael Bay probably doesn't even comprehend, makes him a good choice for the story this film appears to be telling, or at least, he seems to be the best choice after Speilberg.

About that story, because like all fans, I have my own idea as to how to make a good [insert franchise or brand] movie, and when it comes to Transformers, there's a lot that I can say. Michael Bay probably doesn't care about Transformers all that much, to him it's just a brand, it's a toy line of robots that turn into cars, but that's not how I see it, I see it as something more. Something that's been proven time and time again is that Transformers has the potential to tell great stories, most recently and perhaps most notably is the excellent Transformers: Prime, a show that might be the best Transformers has ever been, and a show that, as well as having fun action and cool toys, told a story that was dark and mature, and fleshed out the Transformers, exploring their motivations and pasts and making them more than just machines. The Transformers movies have never done that though, they've never tried to flesh out the Transformers in any meaningful way, Megatron, Optimus, Bumblebee and Soundwave never changed or grew past their basic personalities and generic motives to either save or destroy the world. It's one thing to have cool toy, I love my Transformers: Prime RID voyager class Starscream, but he's not on my Shelf next to Darth Vader and Rey because he's a cool toy, it's because he's a great character, because he's compelling and intriguing and leaves an impact on the audience, and that is something the films struggle to realise even with their human character, let alone the Transformers. It is, however, something that the Transformers films have always needed, and it has consistently been one of their greatest failings. Will Bumblebee fix that, I don't know, it is being written by a new writer to the series, but said writer hasn't written many films, and what she has written includes Unforgettable, a 2017 financial failure with a 34% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn't promising, but there's still Travis Knight at the helm, so maybe it'll work out.

Something that's also very noticeable in the Bumblebee trailer, and something I cannot praise enough, is the changes it makes to the Bayformers aesthetic. The trailer features two Transformers; Bumblebee, who transforms into a VW Beetle this time, like his G1 counterpart, and unlike his 2007 counterpart, who transforms into a Camaro, and Starscream, I think, who transforms into an F-4 Phantom 2, not quite an F-15, but closer in appearance than the F-22 from the 2007 film. This on its own is a great change, as it marks a clear distinction from the previous films, which re-imagined and modernised the classic designs of the Transformers in a way that was cool a decade ago but has lost its lustre now. This change extends past the vehicle modes however and is visible in the robot modes too. In the Bay-directed films, the Transformers would transform from cars and jets into humanoids with a ridiculous amount of mechanical elements, which was awesome when you saw it for the first time, back in 2007 when an MH-53 helicopter stood up on two legs and started massacring the US army, but at a point, when you can't even see what the Transformer turns into through all the moving parts, and said Transformer is no longer recognisable as the character, that's not good. The films also fail to understand basic character design, for instance sharp, striking shapes being associated with danger, and softer shapes being associated with safety, a rule which the designers for the other films completely ignored by making both the Autobots and Decepticons spiky messes. Bumblebee actually looks like it's trying to fix that; sure, there's still a lot of moving parts, but the robot designs, at least for Bumblebee and Starscream, are much simpler and easier on the eyes, more notably with Bumblebee, and bear a much stronger resemblance to their cartoon counterparts, Starscream in particular, who looks fucking amazing in this trailer, at least in the two seconds that he's in the trailer. He looks perfect, the best possible outcome of trying to blend the ugly, spiky Bayformers aesthetic with the original look of the character, even down to the face, which isn't a complete mess of metal like in the 2007 film. I know how minor this point is, but little things matter to me in films, especially when I see a Transformers teaser that actually knows how to tease.

So, I think Bumblebee is a step in the right direction for Transformers on the big screen, pretty impressive for a film I had barely any interest in until I saw the trailer, but the question now is can Bumblebee save Transformers on the big screen, and sadly, I don't think so. The reason for this is something I've been dwelling on since the trailer dropped, in fact, because I'm so pathetically autistic, I pencilled up a chart and did some maths to reach the conclusion that Bumblebee is too late to save the franchise. Bumblebee is dropping at Christmas, which isn't a bad time to drop a movie, the issue is that Bumblebee will have competition from another sixth entry in a failing franchise; AquaMan. I say failing, but that's not entirely true, Justice League was a failure, seeing the lowest box office numbers in the series with a worldwide snag of $650 million, but while those numbers don't even come close to Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction, which both topped $1 billion, they are higher than The Last Knight, which barely surpassed $600 million, and was a complete flop in the American box office, becoming the lowest grossing film in the franchise, both domestic and international. But While Transformers saw a very sharp climb in the box office followed by an even sharper drop, the DC franchise's numbers are all over the place; with its domestic numbers peaking with Wonder Woman, and then immediately flat lining with Justice League, while the situation was inverted in foreign markets, where Justice League was saved, and where Wonder Woman struggled to find as strong a footing. And if we're going on averages, the DC films have been better received over all, with an average audience score of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to Transformers' 59%, and it's the same story on Metacritic. But The last Knight wasn't just the lowest grossing in the series, it was also the worst received, by audiences and critics and audiences alike, and very recently, Paramount removed Transformers 7 from its schedule, which, following The Last Knight's complete failure, is a very bad sign for the future of the franchise. That's not to say that Transformers is dead, it's just a very heavy implication, and maybe Bumblebee will be a success, only time will tell.

I guess I'm a freak like that, but I want Transformers to succeed, I want it to be a beloved and successful franchise, but for it to be either of those things, it has to be good, and all the franchise has done is become more ridiculous and dumb, and its recent slump with The Last Knight might very well have killed it. The one advantage that Bumblebee might have over AquaMan is brand recognition, which was also partly why I wasn't interested in this film, because Bumblebee has become so marketable, and as a result, so over-saturated. But then again, Jumanji kind of crashes my thinking here, because it released in the same window as The Last Jedi, the most hyped film of the year, and somehow managed to become a hit, climbing up to the number one spot at the box office and staying there for five weeks in total, before being dethroned by Maze Runner, and then again by Fifty Shades Freed. A lot of this rides on the quality of the film, which, being the sixth instalment in a franchise that's produced one train wreck after another, with a hack writing the script and a pop singer in the lead role, but with a great director at the helm, is entirely up in the air. The odds aren't in its favour, but I'm excited for the possibility, Bumblebee may have the touch, it may have the power.